I'm trying to draw more often to build up my confidence for demonstrating--something I have long felt is a weakness in my teaching. Because I don't draw often enough it takes longer to arrive at a good place than minutes available in my class time. More practice would help me achieve better results in less time so my demonstration drawings wouldn't be sketched with profuse explanations/excuses/apologies. So with that thought, here is my drawing after Eugene Delacroix.
I have long liked the strength of this piece, which I found in a book somewhere. I'm hoping the label is correct and that it is a drawing by Delacroix and not of Delacroix. (A quick internet search of about 15 pages of Google image results does not help me in answering this question, it does, however allow me to see a hundred or so copies of his famous Liberty Leading the People and show me his amazingly simple and expressive sketch for Attila the Hun.)
I wasn't patient enough to copy the lines of his classical style shading. Deep sigh; but at 1 a.m. my desire to work slowly was asleep without the rest of me (I did not intend to be up that long and it must be understood that I only began the drawing at 11 p.m. or so, so I didn't labor for too many hours on this piece). Instead I dug out my smudging tool and defaulted to a combination of smudge and scribble/hatch. See the shiny graphite--the best drawings avoid this build up by slowly building layers of graphite, rather than pressing hard on the pencil and creating shine.
I'm not sure I like the blue, but again, at that late hour I opted to be adventurous--a choice I rarely make with my drawings. Collage, yes; drawings, no.
I could share a number of other criticisms, but I won't. As long as I see them and know where I went wrong, I know what to watch for next time.
